Toon Zone Talkback - Nick Acquires Rights for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

Today, Rob Paulsen confirmed on his twitter account the following:

New Show Pilot is recording now


He is on the cast as...................Donatello!

Go figure!
 
Talk about selling out. how could they just give away the characters
they created, and worked so long with to Nick? I can understand giving Nick broadcast rights, or rights to make a new series, but this seems like Nick owns the characters 100% now and the original creators have no control over the characters or franchise whatsoever.

If I was in the animation industry, Nickelodeon is not a company I would want to work with. Many of their shows jump the shark to the point where said show is unwatchable. (Ren & Stimpy, Rugrats, Spongebob) Usually because someone gets fired (John K anyone?) Or new writers come in.

Nick's signature is comedy, they don't do action cartoons like CN or (to a lesser extent) Disney XD do.

I'm not the biggest TMNT fan in the world, but I know with Nick involved, this will only mean bad news for the franchise.
 
Right you are sir. That's all I really want from this cartoon or any other. I don't care how dark it is and in all honesty it really doesn't need to be dark at all. As blackstar said, dark and depressing doesn't always mean better. I've seen plenty of those examples where the writers clearly only focused on how much X-rated stuff they could get away with rather than focusing on the story or characters.



I think he was only following along with your statement.
 
So, what about the Japanese show? Remember that? It would be funny if Nick got American distribution for that. Did that ever air in the states? It's about time it did.
 
$50 million for TMNT is still pretty damn low. I wonder if Peter Laird realizes that they pretty much screwed him.

But he's 55 now, will probably retire, and is filthy rich, so he likely doesn't care. I wonder how much of that $50 million he gets to keep himself and how much goes to the other Mirage employees.
 
Wow . . . so, they fail no matter what they do, eh?

Because other studios never throw away anything and lock them in a vault. That's why Megas XLR and Puffy Ami Yumi are still on Cartoon Network. Why Kissyfur and ExoSquad are lined up on store shelves. Why the series versions of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules are on daily on Disney Channel and why Eek the Cat and Samurai Pizza Cats are only on Disney XD. Everybody puts their library shows away. It is unfair, but I think that considering its lineage and global reach, TMNT is actually in better hands now than they were with 4Kids.

To be perfectly honest, 4Kids ran out of ideas with what to do with the characters, and the 25th anniversary special may indeed be the swan song for their ownership of the property, and even that special returns them to 4Kids' initial relaunch designs rather than the Flash Forward and Back to the Sewers designs. I'm just curious to see what Nick does with the franchise and I'm not writing them off even before they got started.
 
I'm not sure I get what you mean. He voiced Raphael in the 1980s version, so it's certainly a surprise that he is voicing a different turtle. Is it being done intentionally as an inside joke or something? I'm really not sure I understand.
 
By the way, since Nick wants TMNT to return to its `87 roots then what about the movie that Paramount is making? Are we finally gonna see Krang, the Technodrome, and Dimension X on the big screen?
 
Everybody being, it seems, me and Old Guy. But I was just speculating. It could honestly be anyone, and I know that. God knows they could go with just about anybody; I was just thinking of who the likeliest candidate would be.
 
Cyber, you completely missed the point. Let me explain it to you. Turtles are slow. So, the idea of Ninja Turtles is comedic. Which is what Laird and Eastman set out to do in the first place. The comics were a spoof on the Frank Miller comics of the time. By default, TMNT has always been comedic.
 
I can't express my fangirlish glee I had when I when he responded to my joking tweet.

I wonder as well if this is a bit of joke casting, I wonder what voice he's using for Donatello.
 
No, Mirage has always owned the rights to every character from the original cartoon.

The reason why they didn't appear in the 2k3 series is simply because Peter Laird didn't want to use them. Now that he is no longer in charge, there is nothing preventing Nick from using them in the new show.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, in fact I'd say its almost a given.
 
Also it's not a show just a two episode OVA, which really is not that good. But it is remembered, there was an image of it quickly durring the "Alternate turtle scene" of Turtles Forever.
 
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